Golden
by UltimateParadox
Summary: Burglary is Syrenne's choice of trade, but malformed alliances send her careening into the Lazulis underground. AU. SyrLow, CaliZael.


**Golden - Chapter 1**

Someone was going to get thrashed for this.

Syrenne's wrists burned as she struggled with the roots binding them. The thick-threaded sack over her head prevented her from seeing, making her lose her head with the many turns the escorts were taking with a profound sense of turbulent vertigo. Truly she looked the part of a captive as the knights brought her closer to the city.

Someone had screwed up. Someone had compromised her.

After an indeterminate amount of time in their grasp, she heard the hubbub of city life, and Syrenne tried to stop the sinking feeling in her stomach as she once more stepped through the streets of Lazulis City.

The island city had been unsuspecting of her arrival and intentions. The boat had been a simple merchant's vessel, stinking of stale food and bitter ale, but it had been cheap and not a glance would be cast its way by any of the guards. The rumors had been correct about the Lazulis watchmen—tough fellows, with plenty of bite behind their bark, and a calculative glance towards anyone passing through their gates. The merchant and his crew had allowed her to join them into the city and under the watchful eyes, but soon she'd separated from them to escape into the tavern she and her contact had agreed on.

Ariela's Tavern was an immense improvement from the ship, joyfully atmospheric and well-kept. Beneath a tapestry stapled with notes of various denominations sat a man, waving her over with a pint in one hand. Dagran had been quite the aide in previous endeavors of hers on the mainland, so long as she paid him, and when he'd heard rumors of Lazulis Island's overflowing treasury, he'd gone searching for Syrenne. The man had more muscle and brain rather than agility and knew that thieving from a lord so powerful as Count Arganan was going to be impossible on his own. Syrenne, images behind her eyes of glistening diamonds and chains of gold and silver, had taken to the plot enthusiastically.

Dagran made an excellent decoy for the opulent castle's guards the next night. Castle Arganan dwarfed even her massive imaginations of the place, but she hadn't become well-known as the Shadow Strike for gawking. Light footsteps had Syrenne sneaking about in the nooks and crannies of the palatial halls, hands centimeters from her dual swords in case all went wrong or Dagran had failed to disturb all of the sleepy castle watchmen.

The treasury was well hidden, but in the end Syrenne had been able to find it. She almost hadn't, but a sharpened instinct had made her pause in the library. Honestly, she'd just been about the cut her losses and make due with a few valuable tomes, but she had noticed the castle's knack for symmetry. There were various rooms and on the other side of the vast foyer, but many less doors speckled the walls to this end. By the plans, the library had to be bigger than it truly was. A quick tug on a gold-plated candelabra and the smooth, stone wall gave way to the haul of her lifetime.

She'd left with her pouches full of nondescript gold coins and a few charming pieces of jewelry, especially the platinum coiled necklace she'd immediately clasped around her neck. The blue gemstone set in the piece wasn't quite her style, but it was gorgeous nonetheless and would certainly catch a hefty price if she decided she no longer wanted it.

Syrenne's escape from the castle had been flawless. She followed Dagran's directions to the rendezvous, somewhere south of the city's main gates—and she remembered that if she reached the farming fields she'd gone too far. An off-road path, untraveled by horses, carts, or human boots, so overgrown with plant life that Syrenne needed to use one of her swords like an explorer's machete, lead her to a shadowed alcove, and there she had waited.

Dagran hadn't shown. Irritation warred with apprehension inside her. The man could have been captured, but that was the price of work like this. Syrenne had decided on waiting until daybreak before leaving Dagran to his fate.

And then the sun broke the horizon and Syrenne would wait no longer. Emerging from the path to the sounds of farmers trudging downhill to their fields, she tried to remember where the nice merchant man said he'd be staying. Perhaps two steps later, metal sung through the air and something flew by her face, nearly nicking her cheek. A dagger was embedded into the rock beside her head surrounding a spiderweb of cracks, and Syrenne had her weapons drawn before she realized she was in danger.

Three knights in shining Lazulis armor stood before her, weapons drawn. One thin man seemed to tug on air and the dagger tore free, the sunlight catching on a line of thread attached to the weapon just as it did his hair. "Thief!" bellowed the biggest man standing beside him with a broadsword, posed for battle.

"It's just as he said," the dagger man said with a sneer. "The bitch was layin' low out here after all."

The third knight, decked head to toe in armor, said not a word.

Orders had come from the swordsman, and the man with the dagger rushed forward. He snapped his wrists and enough daggers to waste a butcher's pig to ribbons appeared between his fingers. He let them fly and that was his first mistake, one he seemed to realize as Syrenne ducked and weaved to avoid them.

Cleaving both swords outward, Syrenne felt the thin cords tying the knives to his hands give way under her meticulously sharpened blades. She was almost insulted.

His second mistake came in rushing her. The one mistake he hadn't made was wearing his armor without a cup. Her knee came up between his legs and when the desired effect of her actions did not happen, she clubbed the man on the side of his head with the hilt of her sword. "Wear a helmet, you ape!"

He'd gone down hard.

"You little—!" screeched the big man as he swung his sword in a wide arc. Syrenne's two blades met his in a block, but his size and strength forced her back. Passerby that hadn't noticed the commotion before began to scream and flee north to their city.

Dealing with the swordsman was easier for Syrenne due to familiarity. The knight had depended on his raw power to dispatch his opponents, a tactic she had little practice in performing but quite a bit in defending herself against. The best way to beat them came with her dual swords technique, and as she waited for his next, godhanded swing to connect, she caught his sword in the meeting point of her blade and hilt. Her sword made an ugly grinding sound against his, but it was no distraction. A fraction of a second later, her second sword was smashed into the protective mail around the knight's wrist.

It had saved his hand, but blood still seeped through the metal ringlets.

Howling, the knight rose his injured arm high in an attempt to bash her head in, but his slow wind up had cost him. "Hah!" Syrenne cried as she kicked out against the man's chest plate and he teetered backwards, landing with a metallic crash to the dirt.

Syrenne's attention had then been focused on the silent knight, hidden behind his armor except for his arms, all in chain mail but for the thick gauntlets that made his hands seem comically large. The knight stood his ground and they stared each other down for a quiet minute. Then, when Syrenne was tense enough to snap, the knight rose a hand and waved at her.

Confusion had flooded her. The man's inanity was troubling. Not just any doddering fool could be a knight in Lazulis!

Pain had suddenly bloomed in her wrist and Syrenne gasped. Daring to draw her eyes from her enemy, she looked down—it was still attached, but her sword had been flung far from her reach. The big man was stealthier than he appeared, having switched to his good arm and swinging the broadsword in a last-ditch attempt to stop her and had succeeded in a disarm.

"Why you—!" Syrenne had crowed at him, driving her foot into the man's good wrist to pin his arm down. "Should've known you wouldn't stay down from a hit like that!"

Her remaining sword arced to deal a punishing blow, but a sudden flash of green light startled her. The earth had trembled and Syrenne backed away from the fallen knight, sword gripped tightly. Panicked eyes saw the silent knight kneeling on the ground, one gauntlet pressed firm to the dirt and glowing a green that put emeralds to shame. Before the word _magic_ could escape Syrenne's lips, the spell burst to life in a moment of madness.

The plant life from the hidden path seemed to grow at an expedited rate, roots snaking out onto the main road. A great tree spawned from a cracking rock face. Shocked, Syrenne didn't notice the roots wind themselves around her ankles, but she did when the tree came to life and swung a branch out. It had smashed into her remaining sword, the overwhelming force of nature smacking it clear from her hands. Trying to back away from the mad tree had resulted in zero progress and she shrieked at the roots climbing their way up her legs and to her hands.

Finally, the silent knight had stood. The helmet was lifted to reveal the mage's face, and the dark-haired, pale-faced girl standing there said, "You've lost. You are under arrest, Shadow Strike."

Someone was going to get thrashed for this. That someone was Dagran.

* * *

**Next time: Syrenne is the newest inmate of the Argonian dungeons, but not the only one.**


End file.
